You don’t have to have it all figured out to move forward. Just take the next step.
– Unknown
Tulum was one of the towns we had been really wanting to visit. Brian had come to Mexico by himself on a scouting trip (of sorts) this past January, and he had really liked it there. When we were about to give up on our dream, he saw this sign on the street in Tulum, and it gave him some encouragement to keep trying. He’s had this picture as a wallpaper on his phone since then. For that reason alone, I would have gone to Tulum, but it helped that Henry was eager to go where his Daddy had been before.
When hurricane Grace made landfall last week, Tulum took a direct hit. We weren’t really sure what we’d find when we got there, but since all of the buses out of Valladolid were heading that direction, we thought we would ride into town and check it out. If things looked ok, we could find a place to stay for a few days. If they weren’t good, we’d move on to plan B and head a little further south.
We ended up staying in town for four nights, and we found the area to be touristy, but mostly in a good way. Our first two nights, we stayed at a cute hotel on the downtown strip. We were only a block away from the bus stop and were surrounded by restaurants and local shops. Henry enjoyed the rooftop pool every chance that he could, and I loved the shower. Our room was small but efficient, and we spent most of our time exploring the town.
Our final two nights in Tulum, per Henry’s request, we stayed at Mama’s Home, a small hostel where Brian had stayed in January. We had a spacious private room on the second floor. We enjoyed our freshly prepared breakfast each morning with the other travelers and we hung out each afternoon in the hostel courtyard hammocks until we went to dinner as a group. Henry was our social butterfly making friends in the kitchen as he prepared snacks for us each day.
On Monday, we rented bikes from a nearby shop and rode a few miles to the beach area. The beach was open, but the rough waters had continued to churn up the seaweed and the shore was a little gross. We played in the sand and waves for a few hours under the scenic cliffs of the Tulum ruins, and I could imagine how beautiful the beach must have been normally. The next morning we walked out of our hotel to find Henry’s rented bike had been stolen. Someone had cut the chain off and taken the bike. Henry had been hoping to ride to breakfast, and while I hated that the bike was stolen, my rear end was relieved to not have to ride bikes anymore.
On Tuesday we ventured a few miles towards Playa del Carmen to a place called Casa Tortugas. They had a hotel and restaurant, but their main attraction was the four cenotes you got access to when you entered their property.
A cenote is a freshwater filled sinkhole and there are thousands of them in the Yucatán peninsula. Some of them are in caves, some are partially open like Ik-Kil, the cenote we visited near Chichen Itza, and some are completely open where the caves that were once above them collapsed. Some of the cenotes served religious purposes in the Mayan days, and gold, silver, jewels, and human remains have been found in the bottom of many (the Mayans believed in human sacrifices to appease their Gods).
At Casa Tortugas, they had two open cenotes and two closed ones (in caves). We had a great time exploring three of the four cenotes there (one was closed to visitors for the day). Tres Zapotes was a long narrow river-like cenote and it was open. Cenote Dorca was another open cenote that was more like a water oasis with a wooden boardwalk surrounding it and a few jumping platforms. Henry jumped in from the 15’ platform at least 10 times. Cenote Wisho was a closed cenote, and it was my favorite. You entered the cenote through a set of stairs that descended into the cave. The water was about 75’ deep, and the ceiling of the cave was only a few feet from the surface of the water. Once we were all in the water, our tour guide dove in and swam under all of us to lead us through the cave and help us find the exit on the other side.
On our last day in Tulum, we rode the Collectivo towards Coba to visit Cenote Carwash. It is called that because at some point in its history, someone had a carwash at the site. It’s real name is Aktun Ha. This is another open cenote and most of the swimming area is around 25 feet deep. The water is cool and refreshing and crystal clear. This cenote is also a local scuba diving spot. At one spot in the bottom, you can access the cave system under the shore that stretches for several miles. Experienced divers can come there and follow the rope guide system to safely navigate the caves. Signs near the surface mapped out the cave and told of how they’ve found remnants of life deep in the cave indicating that it hasn’t always been water filled.
Today we are traveling out of the Yucatán on a 21 hour bus ride to the mountainous region of Chiapas. We could have stayed in Tulum and the Yucatán much longer because there was so much more we wanted to see, but the rest of the world is waiting on us. We want to experience all that we can on this trip, and our time already feels so short. But perhaps we will come back to this area one day.
Don’t wait for things to get easier, simpler, better. Life will always be complicated. Learn to be happy right now, otherwise you will run out of time.
– Unknown
We really enjoyed the paradise of Isla Holbox, but after 2 nights stay there, we left with a plan of traveling to Valladolid and visiting Chichen Itza. Our bus wasn’t scheduled to leave from Chiquila until late in the afternoon, and since there was absolutely nothing to do in Chiquila, we decided to bide our time on the beach again until it we needed to catch our ferry. We left our bags with the hotel, swam in the warm ocean water, and then we grabbed a late lunch at a cool little pizza and pasta restaurant near our hotel. We all had pasta which tasted amazing (or maybe it was just different from the standard Mexican fare). After lunch we grabbed our bags, changed our clothes, and then headed towards the ferry.
Both of the other ferries we’d ridden had taken credit cards, so at this time, we had no idea that our being low on cash was a problem. Unfortunately, the cell service is very spotty on the island, and the cashier couldn’t get a cell signal to run our credit card. So with 15 minutes until the last ferry left, we hiked 2 blocks back into town to the local bank to withdraw more money. By this time, I began to panic because we had already booked our bus tickets and a few nights in Valladolid. If we missed this ferry, we would also miss the once a day bus out of Chiquila for Valladolid too. While Brian talked to the cashier at the bank, Henry stood outside with me reassuring me that everything was going to be alright. As soon as Brian came out of the bank, we all jogged as fast as we could towards the ferry. Now, I have super short legs, and my pack is about 28 pounds of extra weight. Needless to say, me jogging with a full pack like this had to be comical to anyone watching us, although at the time, I found nothing funny about the situation. We were the last people they let on when we finally made it to the boat, but we did make it. As I sat down in my seat, I thanked God for getting us on board.
We made it back to Chiquila in time to grab a snack at the local market and head to the bus station. The station was packed, so we found a good place to stand under the awning where we could catch a breeze and wait. The bus to Merida pulled up, and we watched them load as we continued to wait for our bus. When I had bought our bus tickets online the previous night, I knew our bus would be mostly full, but looking around the station 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave and without the Merida travelers, the station was almost empty. As they closed the Merida bus up, Henry and I went to check the departure schedule board (which was blank by the way) to verify our bus time just in case we remembered the times wrong. The attendant walked in and asked us if we needed anything. I showed him our tickets and he quickly let us know that we needed to be on the Merida bus and that we needed to ‘Go now!’ Thankfully he was able to catch the driver, and they reopened the bus to let us on. Again, I made it to my seat and thanked God we had made it that far!
After two hours of driving through the jungle, we pulled into Valladolid in the middle of an absolute downpour. Our hotel was about a mile north of the bus station, and we debated hailing a cab or walking it. One look at the line for taxis in the absurdly hot station and we decided to walk it. Now, we were prepared for rain but we hadn’t been expecting it, so we found a corner of the station to reconfigure our bags and change into shoes that could get wet. By the time we got our gear swapped over and our bags back on, we stepped out to a wet but no longer raining street. With our bags on our backs, taking off a raincoat is an extremely cumbersome task, so we opted to keep them on for the walk even though we didn’t need them.
We had sidewalks the entire mile route, but sidewalks in Valladolid are much different than the sidewalks I’m used to. The steps were uneven, each home or business had a steep slope to get into their area, and it felt like every single home or business demanded a different height sidewalk. It felt much more like a hike down a rocky trail than a stroll down a city street; you had to watch your footing the entire distance. Also, many of the homes/businesses use smooth or glossy tiles instead of concrete, and those become very slick when wet. The walk wasn’t bad, but in the dark and rain, it felt a little treacherous.
We finally made it to the hacienda where we were staying and our rain jackets were more wet on the inside from our sweat than on the outside from the rain. Our third floor room was nice but we couldn’t get the air conditioning to turn on, so we waited in sheer exhaustion for the clerk to come help us. Thankfully he was able to quickly get it going, and we rested really well that night.
On Wednesday morning, we woke up to an alarm for the first time in a week. We were going to see Chichen Itza. Our plan had been to get up early enough to make the mile long hike and get on the first Collectivo to the ruins. A collectivo is a hybrid between a bus and a taxi. It is a 12-15 passenger van that drives a particular route and picks up/drops off people anywhere along the route. The van leaves whenever they get enough passengers, so you might leave immediately or you might have to wait. They open at 7:00, so if there is enough interest, you may be able to leave immediately and beat the crowds at the tourist attractions. Unfortunately, we were tired from the night before, and we drug into the parking lot at about 7:20 after the first van was gone. The attendant let us know that Chichen Itza was closed because of Hurricane Grace that would be coming through on Thursday, but he said (or maybe we thought he said) the Ik-kil cenote would be open. We had planned to go to the cenote after the ruins anyway, so we decided we would just go there instead.
Apparently there wasn’t much interest in the second van, and it took until around 8:30 before we finally had enough passengers for them to leave. Thirty minutes later, we saw the gates to Ik-kil and asked the driver to stop and let us out. As we crossed the street to the entrance, we were glad to salvage our day, but as we drew near, we were informed that the cenote was also closed that day because of the storm.
At this point, I started laughing just to keep from crying. We were 30 minutes outside of our town and it looked like the day was just doomed. We were still recovering from nearly missing our ferry and our bus the night before, and this wasn’t helping. And did I mention that this was Brian and my 20th wedding anniversary?
As we stood on the side of the road waiting for the Collectivo to drive by on its way back to Valladolid, a couple from Utah was pulling back out onto the road in their little car. They had also come to Ik-kil and had been turned away disappointed. They were on their way back to Cancun where they were staying, and they offered to give us a ride back into town. My parents will probably die to hear this, but we hopped in and talked nonstop all the way back to town. They were students in college who were taking a bit of a break before they completed medical school. We told them about our plans, and they were really excited for us. It was the first time we’d had a real conversation with someone besides ourselves on the trip, and it felt so good to really talk with someone!
Hitch-hiking home from Ik-Kil Cenote near Valladolid, Mexico
We safely made it back to Valladolid, and they let us out near a beautiful church in the downtown area we wanted to see. We toured it and then walked around the downtown area for a while exploring the quaint little town. Once we returned to the room, we swam for a bit, and then cleaned up for a nice anniversary dinner. After dinner, Brian helped me handwash some of laundry in the bathroom sink and we went to bed with our makeshift laundry lines hanging over our heads.
On Thursday morning, Grace hit the area around 4 am. We cracked open the windows and enjoyed the cooler temperatures as we watched the wind whip the trees. Henry caught up on his schoolwork as Brian and I tried to work through our plan and the few items on our to do lists. By lunch, Grace was gone, and we ventured out to find some lunch. We struggled to find food as almost every business was closed that day. The hotel had put out bread, cheese slices, and coffee so that we could at least have that if we wanted. We did find a great meal in the downtown area, though. After lunch, we walked through town in search of a rental car business, but we never could find it. In the process, we got caught in a thunderstorm and got absolutely drenched on our 20 minute walk back home. As Henry splashed in the puddles, I tried to laugh at the absurdity of our situation.
By dinner, most of the businesses were back open again, and we had a really good meal at the hotel restaurant. Henry had pancakes and you might have thought he’d never eaten anything quite so good. After dinner, we sat outside under the breezeway by our room and taught Henry how to play Hearts and laughed about how much misadventure we’d been through during the week.
On Friday, we had a lazy day at the hotel, and we found a plan B on our laundry. Due to the humidity, our laundry that we worked so hard to wash wasn’t drying, and we needed to get on the road again. We found a laundry service that would wash our remaining clothes for us, so we dropped those off and hung out at the hotel most of the day. We picked up our laundry that evening, and it was like Christmas in August to get my stack of freshly laundered clothes back. We decided to stay in Valladolid another night just to try one more time to go to Chichen Itza. Thankfully, this time we were able to make it!
Saturday we toured the ruins and spent the afternoon at the Ik-kil cenote, and it was worth the wait. Henry’s favorite thing about the cenote was jumping in from the platform; he probably jumped in 50 times. The cenote was absolutely beautiful, and we swam with the fish in the freezing water for a few hours.
On Sunday, we packed up and left Valladolid behind. It was bittersweet for me, though, I must admit. There is so much more I want to see, and I know we’ve got to get moving if we want to see it all. However, I really liked this little town. It was beautiful with its colorful buildings and wide doorways, and the people were very kind to us. I remember a posting that I had shared on Facebook recently about Choosing Joy, and I decided that it was a perfect quote for this week. The past few days haven’t worked out like we had planned at all, but if we can find a way to choose joy through the chaos and disappointments, we can remember this as the adventure it was instead of the ordeal it could have been.
When we first started telling people about this idea of traveling the world, there were two questions I got asked repeatedly. The first was ‘Did you win the lottery or something?’ and the second was ‘How can you afford that?’ I tried to answer the questions the best way I could, but at the time, I didn’t really know if my answers had much truth to them or not. We’d read about people traveling the world on the cheap, but we had no idea how to make that happen. I imagined them sleeping in their cars, not showering for weeks on end, and living off of ramen noodles for every meal. If that’s what traveling cheap meant, I didn’t want any part of it.
About two years ago, we made the decision that we wanted to travel long term. At the time, we didn’t really know how we could make that work, but we knew we had to change our lives in order to make it happen. So we did what we knew to do at the time. We tightened our budget – we stopped spending money on things we didn’t really want or need and started whole-heartedly saving what we could. This helped a little, but at the rate we were going, it was still going to take forever to save up enough to travel for a year. We both had good paying jobs, but we spent enough money each month to not have much left over at the end for our savings.
We started reading blogs and watching videos on how to manage our money differently. For years, we had one checking account, one savings account, and one credit card. We put our monthly expenses on a credit card and paid it off at the end of the month, which allowed us to use the credit to live on while our money was in the bank earning interest. This strategy had worked well for us for a very long time. Several ‘travel hackers’ that we learned about advised playing the system to take advantage of extra points or bonuses that you could earn to help pay for travel. There were lots of different checking/savings accounts and credit cards out there that offered significant sign up bonuses and rewards on specific items. We took their advice and opened several strategic accounts so we could earn more on our normal every-day purchases. We weren’t spending any more money than we had been, but we became very strategic about where we put the expenses.
Dining expenses were charged to one card because we earned 3% back on those. Groceries went to another card because we earned 5% at grocery stores on that card. Gas was charged on a third card because we got 2% back on fuel charges. We also took advantage of our grocery store benefits when we could. If we had a big expense coming up at Lowe’s Home Improvement, we’d buy a gift card for Lowe’s at our grocery store and then use it to purchase our items at Lowe’s. This allowed us to earn extra fuel points through the grocery store and 5% back on the expense through the credit card (grocery stores earned 5% whereas home improvement stores only earned the standard 1%). We’d also fill up both vehicles with gas at the same time so we could max out our earned fuel discounts. To be completely honest, I thought Brian had lost his mind when he told me about his plan, and I wasn’t crazy about it. I knew he’d done the research, but it just seemed like a complicated mess to me. I’m still not loving the idea of it, really, but now those points are coming in very handy, and I’m glad we tried it. For example, our Southwest flights to Cozumel would have cost us almost $600 if we paid for them outright. Because of the travel hacking, we only ended up paying $105 for all three of us to get to Mexico. We had to use up some of our banked points, but the flights cost us only a few of the points we earned just for signing up for the cards and saved us quite a lot of money.
By the way, there is a lot of information on travel hacking available on the web. If you are interested in learning more from us, please leave us a note in the comments and we can add a more in-depth post later.
So we saved our money, and we earned a lot of bonus points in the process, but traveling is still expensive, isn’t it? Well, it is and it isn’t. Vacationing is expensive, or at least it is for us. When we would go on vacation, we would want to go everywhere and see everything while we could. We’d splurge a little every day because, well, we’re on vacation. The travel that we are doing now isn’t really a vacation, though. Neither our budgets nor our waists could afford for us to vacation for a year, no matter how much we wanted to. So we are living here more like we might live at home. For us, that means eating moderate meals and splurging only occasionally, staying in decent lodgings that may not be overly luxurious, and visiting free/inexpensive sights where we can. We are living well, but because we are in this for the long haul and not just a week’s vacation, we have to maintain on a modest budget.
Playing cards after dinner
We had read that you could travel the world on $50 per day, and while we initially thought the guy who touted that had to be crazy, we hoped he wasn’t. Fortunately, over the past 11 days, we have managed to easily keep our expenses in the same range. With travel insurance, lodging, transportation (including our flights to Mexico), food, and all our supplies, we’ve averaged $146/day. When you consider that is for 3 people, the $50/day number feels pretty real. Today, for example, we spent $35 on our hotel, $45 on our food, and $8 to have our laundry done. We have been resting by the pool and catching up on Henry’s schoolwork, so it’s been a bit of a lazy day for us. Our travel days are more expensive, but bus fare for all of us from town to town has been about $35 so even that isn’t too bad. The rest of the world won’t be like it is here in Mexico. Some areas will be much more expensive, but some will be significantly cheaper as well. We’ve found it pretty easy to live at this range here, so long as we stay out of the touristy areas mostly. We are eating very well, we’ve had nice private hotel/hostel rooms everywhere we’ve been, and we’ve gone and done quite a lot.
Money is important for traveling, but it can be an excuse that keeps you from enjoying it also. We could have worked longer and saved more, but how much is ever really enough? One day we may return to our jobs and work a while longer, but for now, this is what we need. We aren’t living in the lap of luxury, but we are well fed and happy, and we are together. I’m glad we had the courage to try something new and to invest in us. We might not be rich financially, but we have each other, and for today, that’s enough.
The only thing that is stopping you from where you are to where you want to go is your comfort zone
Dhaval Gaudier
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in Mexico for almost a whole week now. I still feel like I’ll be returning to work next week with some interesting stories to tell about my vacation. It hasn’t sunk in completely that I’m unemployed, and that I won’t be returning to Tennessee anytime soon. I wonder when the ‘vacation’ feeling will go away.
I know many of our family and friends have been worried about us, but in all honesty, we have been doing very well here. We landed in Cozumel on August 10th, and we stayed in the ‘downtown’ area about a mile away from the airport. After being cooped up in a plane and the airport all day, we decided to walk to our hostel rather than take a taxi. After a 20 minute walk in what felt like 100-degree weather, we easily found it. Our hostel was small and intimate, and our host Jorge was exceptionally welcoming. It wasn’t fancy, but we had a room with two double beds, a private bathroom, and the most glorious air conditioning ever (or maybe we were just really, really hot).
I don’t know what I’d expected, but Cozumel was a very laid back little island. COVID restrictions had halted the cruise lines, so there weren’t nearly as many tourists as I’m sure they are used to. Most of the homes in the area were small and run down. The businesses weren’t much more than street fronts with roll up doors, and the restaurants were open air with only a handful of tables. You could smell the foods and see the chefs preparing them as you walked down the street. Most motorists transited town on mopeds, scooters, or bicycles, and many people just walked. There are bars on every window and gates outside every home, but I never felt unsafe here.
On our second day, we decided to head to the beach. On the way to the marina, the atmosphere of the town changed as the businesses in the high-traffic areas targeted the tourists coming on/off of the island. We’d gotten used to the laid back feel of the downtown area, but this marina area was much different with rhythmic music blaring, large crowds moving through the town, and souvenir shops at every turn. We also began to notice big shifts in prices. Three tacos in the downtown area would cost you about $3; in the marina area, the same plate of tacos was about $12. Near the beach, we met Alex, a local tour guide, who spent about half of an hour talking to us about Playa Casitas, the Mayan Indians, and the history of the island. Afterwards, we swam in the shallow water by the shore where Henry was grateful he had brought along his goggles so he could watch the thousands of little fish swimming among the rocks.
We left Cozumel by ferry on day 3 and landed in Playa del Carmen. We only had time to walk around the touristy area for a bit before we boarded our bus to Cancun. Again, we stayed in the downtown area and we walked the 15 minutes from the bus station to our hotel. We’d found a great deal on a nice hotel, so we splurged for a little bit of luxury for the two nights we’d be there. The hotel was fancy and beautiful, and it had a stunning pool. But being there made me miss our little Cozumel hostel. I loved the big thick towels, but I missed the warm welcome and the family feel.
Cancun was very different from Cozumel. It was a bustling area, and even the downtown area where we were staying had the toursisty feel. When we’d walk out of the hotel, we were bombarded with local businesspeople asking us to look at their menus, go on excursions with them, buy their wares, etc. It was uncomfortable, and I didn’t like it. Once you got through them, the rest of town was really nice. We rode the city bus to the beach in Cancun for an afternoon, and it was peaceful and absolutely stunning there. The beach had the beautiful, white sands I love, and the turquoise water was refreshing We played for several hours in the waves, and after getting a little too much sun, we headed back home. We ate in a food court in a park for several meals, and watching the kids play and the people interact with one another made the city feel a little more intimate and pleasant.
On day 5, we rode the bus to Chiquila, and wow what a change that was! The town had only one paved road. The bus hit tree limbs as it navigated the narrow street, and the bus station was only as large as the space the bus needed to turn around in. People here rode bicycles or dirt bikes with buggies affixed to the front of them. The taxis were three wheeled vehicles with one three-person seat in them. With the help of a local resident we were able to find our hotel on one of the gravel side roads. It was very cute, but we were the only guests at the 10-room facility. We had to hunt down the maid to get checked in. She called the owner and we waited about 10 minutes for him to come by and check us in. Our host was very nice, but he promptly let us know that there was a problem with the room we had booked. He said the previous occupant had accidentally taken the key with him, and it would be a few days before they could get it back. We were welcome to stay in the room we booked without a key if we liked or he could move us to another. We chose the other. The hotel also had a restaurant, but unfortunately, the chef cut himself and had to be taken to a hospital, so instead of enjoying dinner there, we ventured into town and found a delicious meal at a stand on the side of the road. Breakfast was included with our room, so on Sunday morning, we enjoyed a hot breakfast cooked just for us by the hotel staff. They really worked hard to treat us well, and we loved their hospitality as well as that of the town.
Yesterday, we rode another ferry to Isla Holbox and easily found our hotel. Again, we were told that there was a problem with our room, but they were able to put us in a different room which worked out better for us instead. This hotel is also very nice. Our room has a kitchen, and because of the prices of food here on the island, we’re cooking several of our meals here instead of going out. We have already explored the beach here twice, and we will be going back there again later today. Henry has also been eyeing a little park we found on the way to the beach yesterday, so we may stop by there again as well. It’s a cute island, and there isn’t much to do except lay back and relax, which is just what we need right now.
We’ve had lots of questions from home, so I’ll try to answer the most common ones for you.
I must say that the food here has been better than I expected. Unlike Brian and Henry, I’m not much of a fan of Mexican food, so I was concerned about my ability to find sustenance while we were here. So far, that’s been a non issue. We have been very pleased with our meals so far. We aren’t big breakfast eaters, so we’ve gotten food from the markets for breakfast most days and that has also helped to save us money. Brian says he’s proud of me for ordering my meals without really knowing what is coming on them (the menus here are generally not descriptive at all). I’m not very adventurous with food, so this is a stretch for me. I’ve had to pick a few things off, but nothing that was too bad. Henry has liked his food as well, but he’s decided to start letting Brian order for him as nearly every meal, he ends up liking Brian’s food more than whatever he ordered.
One thing I’ve found interesting is how much more seriously Mexico is taking the COVID precautions than we took them at home. You cannot enter a store or restaurant here without walking over a shoe cleaning mat, getting your hands (and sometimes your belongings) sanitized, and wearing a mask. Its obvious that they are working hard to keep people safe here. They need the tourists, and if the travel industry gets shut down again, they will suffer even more.
We haven’t felt unsafe anywhere we’ve been. People have been very friendly to us, and most have been eager to help us. We haven’t had any issues with not speaking Spanish, although it has been comical communicating with folks occasionally. We’ve ridden in a taxi, 2 ferries, 2 city buses, and 2 long-distance buses with no issues. We’ve also ordered multiple meals, bought ice cream, purchased deli meats from a grocery store, and stopped for directions several times. I have been surprised by how few English speaking natives we’ve seen/met on the trip so far; I think it will be nice to have a good old fashioned conversation soon.
We have stuck to our budget pretty well so far, and I hope to post something on that in a few days. We did have one instance where we felt like we got taken advantage of, and that was in a pharmacy when we were buying sunscreen. We were in Cancun, and we were tired and in a rush. We walked into a pharmacy to buy sunscreen, and it was stored behind the counter. We ended up paying $17 for a small tube of sunscreen. If we’d been more careful, we would have recognized the high price and found a better deal elsewhere, but we’ll treat it as a lesson learned. We’re still getting used to converting pesos to dollars, but we will definitely be more careful now.
This week I’ve experienced lots of firsts. Not all of them were great, but nonetheless, I’m glad I had them. It’s scary to be in a different country surrounded by people who don’t speak your language and to rely on their help and your instincts to get by. Of course we knew that’s what we’d run into before we left. Compared to my expectations, this hasn’t been so bad, really. We originally had planned to start our trip in Europe where life would be a little more familiar to us, but with COVID, that just wasn’t feasible. This is much more out of my comfort zone, but I’m so grateful we had the chance to start out here.
Life is like a roller coaster. Sometimes you close your eyes and hold on in shear terror, and other times, you just have to raise your hands up in the air and enjoy the ride.
Unknown
The past week has been a complete whirlwind, an emotional rollercoaster like I’ve never experienced before. All week, I have been flitting around as fast as I could trying to get everything that we needed done before our departure. At times, I’d think through how amazing this trip will be and how lucky we are to get to do it. More often than not, though, I could barely breathe because the anxiety would creep in and my joy and excitement would be overpowered by fear – fear of the unknown, of missing my family, of not getting all my ducks in the row in time, of the million and one things that could go wrong. I would remind myself constantly that this opportunity is worth the short term struggles, and that when we actually get going on the trip, everything will be much more calm. Sometimes it worked to calm me down, but not usually.
I know Brian and Henry have been going through this as well. When Henry gets nervous, he talks more than usual (and that’s saying something). When Brian is anxious, he gets cranky. I become like a drill sergeant barking orders with no sense of humor. Through all of it, thankfully, we’ve clung to each other and we’ve pulled closer as a family instead of letting the stress pull us apart. And as I think about it, that’s part of the reason we are going on this trip anyway – to pull together. So maybe it has been a little good for us.
Our last day in Nashville was chaotic, at best. We had the last of our stuff to take to storage, family to see, two cars to sell, and we had to get packed for a 6:00 am flight the next morning. We went hard all day long, each of us trying to divide and conquer the chore list. If it weren’t for the help of our family, we wouldn’t have made it. Heck, even with their help, we ended up flying out this morning on 2.5 hours of sleep. There were tears and nervous laughter last night as we packed our bags, anxiety as we worried that the zippers on our bags might not be able to hold against the stress and wondering what else we might have missed, sadness as we hugged our family for the last time for a long while, and excitement about what our next days would hold.
We woke up at 3 am this morning, quickly dressed and repacked our bags, threw out everything that we had left in the apartment, took out the garbage, and left two boxes of stuff for my sister-in-law to pick up later just as our Lyft driver pulled up. The airport was buzzing even at 4 am, and my anxiety along with the big crowd and the general chaos of checking in were enough to raise my blood pressure and make me nauseous. We felt unprepared as we went through check in trying to answer all of the questions and supply all the documents they needed. Apparently Southwest had sent us an email on Monday with a link to a form we would also need, but since we were running crazy all day, we’d missed it. The agent was fantastic, and she helped us through it, but we could feel the glares from everyone in line behind us as we held them up. We finally made it through security and to the gate with plenty of time to grab some breakfast to try to settle ourselves and catch our breath, but the hurricane of emotions continued to batter my heart. On the way down the corridor to the plane, I began crying like a baby at the thought of not seeing home again for a year. The time will fly by, but I’ve never been very good with goodbyes, and this one was hard. As I sat on the plane, Henry and Brian did their best to calm me, and they helped me remember that my home is wherever they are. Since the moment we took off with both of them holding my hand, I’ve had a peace again about this adventure. This is what we are supposed to do, after all.
As I type this, Brian is asleep in a hammock in our room, and Henry is passed out on the bed. We’re all beat, but now that we are here, we can rest a little easier. We’ll find some dinner soon, and tomorrow, we’ll figure out where we go from here. We don’t know what’s in store for us now, but we’re going to do our best to raise our hands up in the air and enjoy the ride.
Over the next 12 months, our goal is to step onto every continent and swim in every ocean. We’re starting out by flying from Nashville, Tennessee to Cozumel, Mexico where we have 2 nights hostel reservations on the island. From there, we have 4 months to get to Ushuaia, Argentina so that we can begin the next leg of our journey to Antarctica. From there, we’re not quite sure where we’ll head, but we expect to spend about 2 months in Africa, 3 months in Asia, and 3 months in Europe. We’re hoping that we can work in Australia before we come home as well, but with all of the current travel restrictions, we aren’t sure how we can do that yet. Our plan is to return home to Tennessee in August 2022.
The link below shows many of the sites we’ve identified that we want to go and visit. Hopefully we can go to most of them, although we are certain we won’t hit them all. If you have somewhere in mind that we absolutely must go, please drop us a line and let us know!
Expedition Fresh Start 